Dread Symbol
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
| |
| Dread Symbol | |
| Player: @SPTrashcan | |
| Origin: | Magic |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Brute |
| Threat Level: | 24 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Tou Kong |
| Known Aliases: | Confidential |
| Species: | Human |
| Age: | 33 |
| Height: | 5' 6" |
| Weight: | 155 lb |
| Eye Color: | Black |
| Hair Color: | Black |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | unknown, raised Hmong |
| Occupation: | Assassin |
| Place of Birth: | unknown |
| Base of Operations: | Sharkhead Isle |
| Marital Status: | Widower |
| Known Relatives: | unknown |
| Known Powers | |
| Symbol Tattoo, Qigong | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Hung Gar Kung Fu | |
| Equipment | |
| Robe | |
| No additional information available. | |
The one now known as Dread Symbol was a soldier for the Tsoo, until a cursed tattoo marked him as the property of the vile deities of the Dark Cosmos.
Contents |
Affiliations
Dread Symbol's tattoo forces him to serve the Dark Cosmos. Though he is compelled to obey the Dark Generals, he despises them, and as for the youma he considers them subhuman monsters. However, he has much more sympathy for the Dark Magical Girls, particularly Omen Soldier Miyako, and hates the Dark Generals all the more for considering them expendable.
Personality
Even before receiving his vile mark, Tou Kong was by no measure a good man. Although unflinchingly loyal to the Tsoo, and a faithful husband and father, he held no compunctions about hurting or killing the enemies of the Tsoo. His defiance of the Dark Cosmos arises not from virtue but from his idiosyncratic code of honor. Dread Symbol is taciturn, erudite, dispassionate, cynical, and intensely focused.
Powers
Symbol Tattoo
A complex tattoo covers every inch of Tou Kong's skin. This is the Dread Symbol, a vile pattern which marks the bearer as the property of cruel and insane deities. A mere glimpse of any part of the pattern is enough to make most observers quake with some undefinable fear. The tattooed skin is also iron-hard and deflects blows. When a large portion of the pattern is revealed suddenly, all who see it are weakened, and the bearer of the Symbol is strengthened in proportion.
Qigong
Tou Kong's mastery of kung fu and esoteric manipulation of internal energy allowed him to perform apparently superhuman feats even before he received his tattoos. He is capable of incredible leaps, and once he assumes his combat stance it is almost impossible to trip him.
Abilities
Hung Gar Kung Fu
Hung Gar, also known as Tiger-Crane, is a form of kung fu focusing on powerful hand strikes emerging from a low, stable stance. Tou Kong has trained in this style for much of his life, and even without his tattoos he is a deadly combatant.
Equipment
Robe
Dread Symbol's loose-fitting robe and trousers effectively conceal his supernatural tattoos. When it becomes necessary to use the tattoos' power, he pulls the robe from his shoulders and lets it hang from the sash around his waist, so that he can easily replace it.
Weaknesses and Limitations
Dread Symbol is compelled by his mark to serve and obey the Dark Cosmos cult. Furthermore, he himself is not immune to its malign influence. To avoid the possibility of being driven mad by his own reflection, he wraps his eyes in a blindfold. This does not significantly impact his ability to fight, due to his extensive training and the strange intuition the tattoo has given him, but it does prevent any task involving vision.
In order to resist the compelling power of the symbol to even the small degree which he does, Dread Symbol must spend several hours of the day in meditation. Furthermore, if he ever sleeps the symbol will assert control over him. The power of the tattoo makes food, drink, sleep, and even breathing unnecessary, but it does not prevent him from feeling hunger, thirst, exhaustion, or asphyxiation.
Character History
The Tsoo recruit their most loyal soldiers from the many children abandoned at birth. Tou Kong was one such child, raised from infancy into the strict authoritarian crime society. Knowing no family but the thugs, gangsters, and killers of the Tsoo, Tou Kong accepted their ways and sought to make himself useful to his brethren. He practiced kung fu constantly, and educated himself in the ways of thieves and assassins. By the time he considered himself a man, he had already killed three men.
Tou Kong's achievements did not go unnoticed among the Tsoo, and he acquired both friends and enemies. He refused promotion, preferring the simplicity of the soldier's life to the politics of leadership. He fell in love with, and eventually married, a fellow orphan recruit, and together they had a son. In this time, however, he did not receive any of the magic tattoos which elevate the Tsoo beyond simple gangsters. His stated reason for refusal was that he preferred to prove himself using his own strength and skill, but in truth he also had great pride and did not consider any of the tattoos worthy of him.
That changed one day when one of Tou's friends, another among the orphans and a master tattooist, woke from a fevered nightmare with a vision of a terrible design burning behind his eyelids. He related his vision to Tou, as well as his compulsion to see it drawn. Tou in his pride agreed to be his friend's canvas, and soon the first lines of ink were being laid into his skin.
As the tattoo spread across his body, Tou slipped into a reverie. He dreamed that he lay naked and prostrate before a collection of immense and foul beings, who opened eyes that burned with cold flame and seared marks into his flesh. He tried to struggle in his dream, but his limbs were paralyzed and useless and his shouts were swallowed by the void. When at last he awoke, it was only to a different nightmare. His friend lay dead at his side, having slit his own throat. He glanced down at the finished pattern on his body and was overwhelmed by some instinctive horror and revulsion. He closed his eyes, clothed himself, and fled for the safety of home.
Home, however, was where he became the inadvertent instrument of his own tragedy. He greeted his wife with outstretched arms, but she saw only the evil design written on his skin. She fled to their bedroom, where their infant son was sleeping, and attempted to shield him from the monster; when he approached to try to calm her she only shrank away until, cornered, she took the only escape left and, seizing the knife at her side, killed her son and herself. At last understanding the curse under which he had been placed, Tou Kong cursed his pride, his faith, and the mad beings of the void who were now his masters. Compelled by the irresistible influence of the symbol, he made his way to the Rogue Isles and the cult of the Dread Cosmos.
